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QDDR: Building on Our Interagency Successes in Global Health

About the Author: Ambassador Eric Goosby serves as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.

The State Department's initial Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) has been a remarkable undertaking. Secretary Clinton deserves enormous credit for fulfilling her vision of elevating development as an equal partner in the critical platform of defense, diplomacy and development.

At the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC), responsible for implementing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, we see in our work each day the real benefits that smart development efforts bring to people across the globe. Simply put, the United States' health and development efforts promote stability and security while improving and saving lives. Our country's investment in the bipartisan PEPFAR program has led to remarkable results. We're supporting treatment for more than 3.2 million people and care for more than 11 million. We supported antiretroviral prophylaxis to more than 600,000 pregnant women living with HIV in fiscal year 2010 alone. As a result over 114,000 babies were born free of HIV.

We've come a long way since PEPFAR was launched by President George W. Bush in 2003. Thanks to the leadership of both President Bush and President Barack Obama and outstanding support from both sides of the aisle in Congress, the investments that the United States is making in fighting HIV/AIDS are reaping real dividends. Not only have the interagency activities of PEPFAR been successful in delivering life-saving services, but these activities support the principles of the Global Health Initiative (GHI): strengthening health systems, investing in country ownership and focusing on women, girls, and gender equality through strong interagency and collaboration. And now it's time to capitalize on those dividends through GHI, which will allow us to connect and maximize the impact of our health investments, building on the foundation of PEPFAR.

As part of the QDDR process, we will be making some changes in the structure of GHI in order to improve our coordination, make our investments more cost-effective, and better integrate our efforts to strengthen our partner countries' abilities to sustain progress over time. The Secretary will be hiring an Executive Director to report to her and the Operations Committee -- the USAID Administrator, the CDC Director, and me -- and assist us with the transition of this Initiative to USAID. This position will initially be housed at State and will eventually transition to USAID as part of our overall efforts to strengthen USAID's capacity, while continuing to report to the Operations Committee. We'll also be working to strengthen the interagency nature of our work, and are committing to benchmarks to help us make the most of our whole-of-government efforts in the health arena. GHI will transition to USAID once it has established the capacity and structures to support a coordinated, inclusive, whole-of-government effort for GHI.

These changes will not alter my role in leading PEPFAR, a duty established by Congress, nor will they move the coordination of the program out of the State Department or change the interagency model that has been so successful. However, these changes will help better integrate and link U.S. investments in communities impacted by HIV to the broader health and development investments in the developing world. Ultimately, the U.S. government will be better positioned to ensure a collaborative interagency effort, and make our investments more effective in saving money and saving lives. As Secretary Clinton said yesterday, “ … we will build up our civilian power: the combined force of civilians working together across the U.S. government to practice diplomacy, carry out development projects, and prevent and respond to crises. Many different agencies contribute to these efforts today. But their work can be more unified, more focused, and more efficient.”

The QDDR is a reminder of how important advancing global health is to our economic and national security. Over the last few months, I've talked a lot about how we have a shared responsibility to make smart investments that will promote security and save lives. That's a job that PEPFAR takes seriously. In doing so, we look forward to working with Congress, our partners across the U.S. government, other donor nations and partner countries, civil society, the private sector and all those committed to ensuring that PEPFAR continues on our path of defeating AIDS once and for all.

Comments

Comments

jitendra s.

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India

December 17, 2010

Jitendra S. in India writes:

Respected sirs I wish to state that the hooch tragedy which has killed more than 150 people in Gujarat recently, I want to draw your attention about the another aspect of that accident, I want to remind you that as we all know very well that our state Gujarat is already on the hit list of terrorists and because of the liquor prohibition policy of our state govt. daily thousands of bottles in trucks of English liquor illegally made in our neighboring states and are supplied to our state. and whole of this network is operated by liquor bootleggers and mafias who can fall in to the hands of terrorists at any time and terrorists can supply a lot of poisonous liquor and can kill a largest number of innocent people any time and this will be comparatively easy and effective way for them. So I want to request you to establish the responsibility that who will be sole responsible for the accident if it takes place. Because directly govt is only responsible to first implement the liquor prohi. policy then to allow mafias to smuggle liquor in to the state, the smuggling of liquor is not possible without the cooperation of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats therefore I request you to accept my this request as a PRL and give the right directives to govt. so any major accident can be avoided. Respected sirs I am giving you some more aspects of this policy so please consider my that letter also a request to you which is as follows:-
Respected sirs ,please consider the following points in the aspect of relevancy of liquor prohibition policy of Gujarat and direct the govt. to rethink over it.. [1] Though the liquor prohibition policy is there in force in Gujarat but three times more liquor is being sold here compare to any other state of India .[2]Local gujarat govt. justifies this policy by saying that because this is the Gandhi’s Gujarat therefore we implemented this policy here, on moral grounds. But today we have to think that who they are to say that Gujarat’s Gandhi or Gandhi’s Gujarat. Gandhi is the father of nation and whole nation is Gandhi’s. Gandhi struggled for whole India and he never said that he is for Gujarat or Gujarat is for him so today we have to think that Don’t we put question mark on his thinking by saying Gandhi’s Gujarat.? And after all finally we have to think that Gandhi never taught us the lesson to move on morality by crushing humanity . [4] The transaction of millions of rupees has been criminalized which money moves within the liquor mafia and corrupted officers and politicians only. If this policy is demolished the same money will come in the market to the businessmen and even youths will get a new field to earn and get employment .[5] on the name of country liquor which liquor is being made and being sold here, millions of people are drinking that is made by car battary’s acid, detergent soaps water, saltpeter(anum) or ( FITKARI),and Gud(brown sugar).Now it can be understood that drinking such liquor can be how much harmful. This liquor causes the liver diseases, tuberculosis, and other so many skin diseases also.[6] This is the totally failed and unsuccessful policy which violates our religious and human rights because we hindus think we have the right to worship our god Kal bhairav but we cant do so because liquor is required to worship the same god .but we cant get liquor because of this Islamic policy is implemented on our heads.
Respected sirs I wish to state that there are 5 crore people living in Gujarat state of India in which about thirty percent people consume liquor. Still the liquor prohibition policy is in force there. Due to this policy now you can imagine how a big number of people is consuming the poisonous liquor regularly and how big damage the society is bearing due to this policy, we tell the people that this is the policy which does not give anything to society but only crime corruption and diseases. We request all the electronic and print media to understand the seriousness of this matter and give the coverage to us and our voice. But we are neglected everywhere. only because we have no big funds to advertise ourself . but hereby I would like to request you to remind you that the time when they neglect us really they don’t neglect us but they neglect a large number of innocent people of Gujarat who are bearing the torture of this policy and are drinking poison with keeping mum because they don’t know where to go and whom to ask for their help, at last finally we look at you with the hope of some help from you. But your ignorance to us and such policy of killing the innocents with slow poison will make us more nervous. Therefore once again we request you to reconsider our request and to do needful.
(copy to you)